How Telehealth Can Enable New Care Management Strategies in Alternative Payment Models

Telehealth continues to play a critical role in health care delivery amid COVID-19. In a prior post, we described how policy makers can maximize the benefits of telehealth by featuring it prominently in a post-COVID-19 payment policy reboot.

By leveraging technology, APM participants can go beyond super-utilizer management and extend population health management interventions to a wider range of their populations. For instance, tele-encounters can enable staff to engage more patients and caregivers than would be possible via in-person care alone. Remote monitoring provides a mechanism for monitoring patients at risk of worsening disease control.

Using telehealth to drive innovative care management strategies within APMs is not a panacea. Policy and practice communities still must work together to create better measures of telehealth use, as well as payment incentives that guard against unintended consequences.